Semaphore Beach Gets a Clean Up!

Heidi

Year 6 students from Portside Christian College in Adelaide headed back down to Semaphore Beach on November 23rd to continue their monitoring of marine debris along the coastline.

The students had been at the beach in August and were keen to see the differences in the marine debris they would find with the seasons changing and more people heading to the beach. The clean up was conducted along the same 1.2km of beach south of the Semaphore Jetty as in August and here is a summary of the data that the students collected.

There was an increase in both the number of marine debris items and weight collected, going from 303 pieces weighing 21kg in August to 404 pieces weighing 45.2kg in November. This was in part to several metal stakes and alot of road bitumen found on the beach. Also an increase in beach user debris with the number of cigarette butts increasing from 6 in August to 39 in November! Read more “Semaphore Beach Gets a Clean Up!”

Science on the Beach with Portside Students

Heidi

Teachers from Portside Christian College and Tangaroa Blue met up far from Adelaide at workshop on marine debris being held on North Stradbroke Island earlier this year. It wasn’t long until plans were underway to involve the students and at the beginning of September a beach clean up and data collection lesson was held at Semaphore Beach in Adelaide.

From 1.2km of beach students removed 303 items weighing 21kg! While the beach looked relatively clean, washed up on the high tide mark was plenty of small debris, all which are a threat to local marine life and seabirds.

Reports from the teachers after the event were that the students all enjoyed it and they had already heard reports from parents that their kids enjoyed the day. The students planned to have a further look at the debris they collected in the coming week and will endeavour to set up a regular visit to this stretch of beach and others to collect more data for the Australian Marine Debris Initiative.